In ’86 it was Expo. In 2010 it was the Winter Olympics. But last weekend topped them all.
“It was just amazing,” Charlene Williams says. “It was definitely one of my favourite memories.”
As a member of the Squamish Nation, Williams has danced for as long as she can remember. It’s a part of her fabric: a string that ties her to her culture and ancestry. On Thursday, Aug. 7, it also became the thread that connected the Squamish Nation’s youth to the community at large. It’s a moment that moves Williams to tears.
“I felt so proud,” she says. “I don’t fear the future of our people and culture.”
At the kickoff of the Squamish Valley Music Festival, 27 members of the Welh Tima Kexwusem dancer team hit the stage with the Ottawa-based electronic music band A Tribe Called Red. What was originally planned as a single act for a single song with the Nipissing First Nation and Cayuga First Nation artists evolved into the entire set.
It’s going to be difficult to top the event, Williams’s 15-year-old son Johnny says. It was an amazing experience to dance for his peer group, he noted. The performance in front of approximately 30,000 people was an eye opener for many of Johnny’s non-native friends. Some of them didn’t know about his involvement in his nation’s cultural activities.
“After the show some of my friends were asking questions about my culture,” he says.
Groups like A Tribe Called Red help showcase historical traditions with a modern twist, Williams said. Thousands of years ago, the Squamish Nation would have welcomed people into the community with the same dances that they did onstage with a Tribe Called Red.
“It’s exciting to see how people are trying the traditions and using them today,” Williams said.
A Tribe Called Red describes its music as “Powwow step,” a smooth collision of First Nation songs with what one might hear on the dance floor of a nightclub. They’ve helped inspire the next generation of First Nations to be proud of their culture, Squamish Nation dancer Deanna Lewis says. The Juno Award-winning band have brought attention to mainstream racism, with Ian “DJ NDN” Campeau filing a human rights complaint against an amateur Ottawa football club that was using “Redskins” as its club name.
The dance team is still buzzing from the night. The crowd was so loud, 13-year-old Nolan Rudkowsky said. He’s crossing his fingers that next year they’ll get a chance to dance again.
The crew was not nervous about the performance, Lewis said.
“We had prayed beforehand and we know our songs,” Lewis says, her voice brimming with excitement. “Every time we started dancing the crowd went wild. Everyone was a rock star.”
